


Share Alike

by Ladycat



Series: Happy Endings [2]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, College
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re quite a family, aren’t we?”</p>
            </blockquote>





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Spike knows when it starts.

The campus is low and green, teaming with students too stupid to understand that it’s not just darkness they should be afraid of. Spike watches them, standing by walls and behind dumpsters, remembering the way he used to watch another. Just as slim, just as awkward in a body meant to be fluid, just as—just as a lot of things.

The similarities are enough to make Spike choke, coughing around a cigarette he never even tastes.

The apartment’s not much bigger than a shoe box, barely big enough for one skinny brat, let alone two. They make do. The not-parents pay for rent, the kid’s job at the cafeteria enough to keep them in greasy, salty food whenever they’ve got a craving for it, maybe some extras on the side. Spike says he’s paying for the cable and internet, but he’s pretty sure the euphemism’s understood. Demonic connects ought to count for something, and free porn at three am is what Spike considers a good-faith effort.

They could have more, if either of them wanted. The number is written in faded black ink on a paper swirled pink and sparkly, a flier for a party neither of them went to, taped on the wall. They don’t talk about it.

Spike wonders if he finds it comforting. Spike does. Hates it, but he does.

“Do you have my book?” Connor is slender enough to be skinny, except there’s a hint of muscle peeking out behind a shirt that’s literally covered in graffiti. Looking at it makes Spike feel old; he doesn’t get half the slogans and the ones he does, he thinks he’s got wrong. “I need it for class.”

Spike raises an eyebrow. He’s tense, uncertain and a little afraid. This is new territory for both of them: him most of all. But Connor doesn’t smirk when the thick book is dug out from beneath Spike’s bed, and he doesn’t make the expected cracks as he stows it into his worn, beaten gray backpack.

“I’ll give you my notes,” is the only comment, said right before he vanishes out into the hazy California sunshine. “Later.”

It’s a good ten minutes before Spike stumbles to his feet, pulling out a half-frozen bag of blood, drinking the mushy chunks of it without pause. It’s no surprise Connor knows, after all. He’s got his damned sire’s talent at getting under Spike’s skin—but he’s not Angel. Not even Angelus. Connor’d given him that secret, handed it over with a shadowed smile because he knows Spike knows _his_ secret.

Share and share alike. It’s got a nice ring to it.

* * *  
“Did you do this, before? With her?”

There’s always a fence, always a brick wall somewhere. Spike’s got a sixth sense about finding them. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Connor rolls his eyes, so achingly similar that for a second, all Spike see’s is a golden waterfall of bright blonde hair, a smile painted too red, too blinding for the melancholy stored up behind it. They even fucking move the same, which gives Spike nightmares. “Right,” he drawls, light and amused in his sarcasm. “So, I shouldn’t tell you that I’m taking Proust next semester, and the Shakespeare course you’ve been drooling over.”

Connor’s majoring in engineering, but he’s taken a Renaissance approach to it. For every three engineering courses, there’s at least one of the softer sciences mixed in, maybe two. It’s hollow comfort that he’d styled his education that way even before Spike, but it’s a comfort just the same. 

His friends laugh at him and call him Da Vinci. Connor never seems to mind.

“Why should I give an arse for what classes you take?”

Another eye roll, this time accompanied with an arch look. “Uh huh. They want me to buy the Complete Works. Think you could split it with me?”

Spike snarls, pushing off so fast the brick burns against his shoulders; it’s too hot for the duster, laying coiled up and gleaming under his bed next to a pile of books he’d thought Connor didn’t know about. “Get me the fucking ISBN.”

“Cool. So did you do this? Before?”

Fuck. Reprieves are as tantalizingly false with him as with Angel, the brat’s mind deviously thorough. Or maybe that’s not Angel’s influence. Maybe that’s something older, something darker, that comes from the same place as Connor’s nightmares, waking him up cold and shuddering five nights running. Spike’s not about to ask on that subject.

“Why do you want to know?”

Connor shrugs. He’s twirling a bit of wood, the edge sharpened pale and white against the velvet sky. They’re away from most of the lighted paths, by now. “The way you look at me, sometimes.”

That's not all of it, Spike knows. The calls are coming less and less frequently, the messages on their machine growing fewer, and not just because the tape routinely chews itself clean without them ever pressing the ‘delete’ button. 

What those calls and messages say, though, that’s pretty clear.

“It’s not the gender issue, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Connor’s smiles are as fleeting as ice in midsummer, there and gone again with only a blush of pink to remember them by. “I’m not worried.”

Of course he is. He’s human, a boy with the memories of a man, and claiming he doesn’t worry is as ludicrous as claiming he doesn’t need the sun, need air in his lungs and blood in his veins. He worries. It’s just his worries are distant, set off at a remove Spike hasn’t been able to touch, yet.

“She used to pun,” he says, head tipped up and back while the moonlight temporarily blinds him. “And bitch to herself, when she was happy.”

“That’s not very practical.”

Spike thinks about miniskirts that squeaked every time she walked in them. “Not really the point, is it.”

* * *

It ends up being Dawn. “It’s not like I care,” she says, voice tinny and oddly gruff over the phone line. “It’s just—well. You know.”

He does know, and he doesn’t, and he’s not sure which card to best play. Him and Dawn don’t mesh well—though time has worked it’s magic and some things are better, at least. Some things.

Collapsing onto his bed, Spike rubs his face. The blinds are getting frayed, silvered tape starting to go stale and smooth. They’ll have to be redone, but right then, all Spike can think about is sticking his hand in the pale, ambient mist that spills out from the cracks. He remembers the blisters, black and bubbling, for almost a week straight. Good times.

“So what’s the final answers, Summers?” She hates it when he calls her that, like he’s tarring her with a brush covered in acid. She never gets that it’s the highest compliment he can give. Which works, since he wouldn’t use it if she did. “What’s it gonna take?”

“You think _I_ know? Please. If I knew that, then I wouldn’t be on the phone with you in the first place.”

Spike doesn’t react when Connor finally opens the door, coming inside with a cheery smile and a silent wave. _Loser_ , he thinks, contemptuously. His stomach feels sick and sour, like his supper’s gone bad on him. Of all the things Connor does, this pisses him off most of all. If you’re going to eavesdrop, do it for information, do it for fun. Otherwise don’t bloody do it at all.

It doesn’t stop him from turning his cheek into Connor’s shoulder, once the books are put away and they’re sharing the bed. Maybe it’s him that’s the loser.

“Final answer, Dawn. I’ve got places to be, demons to kill.”

“Liar,” Dawn says, pleased as punch. “The area you're in is _dead_ , metaphorically, or so we’ve been hearing.”

They’ve been hearing right, but they’ve been hearing it from the wrong sources. Beneath him, Connor shakes with laughter. Spike pokes him, hard. “Someone’s always up for a good tussle.”

“Is that, like, some kind of code for you turning tricks? Because that’s what Xander thinks you’re doing. Okay, whenever Xander says that he gets a really disturbing look on his face, but I could see you as somebody’s boy whore. Easily.”

It’s the lasciviousness that gets him. Not the words, really; he’s long since stopped caring about the specific words she uses. But Joyce’s youngest daughter shouldn’t sound like that, not ever, and certainly not in reference to Spike. It’s… creepy. And wrong. And he knows exactly what it is he’s quoting.

Connor’s hand is flat and warm at the base of his spine, vibrating with life.

“What’s the right answer, Dawn?” He hates when he sounds so old. “I’ve got no time for political games.”

“Is that what you think? God, you really did become a moron. Look, just call them, okay? Otherwise she’s going to freak.”

“Fine,” he says, which _is_ the right answer. “I’ll call.”

He doesn’t say when, just hangs up and buries his face in Connor’s neck.

* * *

It’s not unexpected. What’s odd is that he’s getting it from both ends, and in the weirdest ways. Email from one—badly written, full of typos and misspellings that make Spike cringe—while the other takes to watching him as much as he watches in return. It’s frustrating, and annoying. Incredibly annoying. He’s too fucking old for this shit.

It’s just, well, they’re too fucking _young_.

The answer comes on a Tuesday, making their way down narrow alleys as they hop fences for home. They never take streets if they can help it. “He tried, once.”

Spike goes still as wax. He can’t breathe, and can’t seem to remember he doesn’t need to. “What?”

“Once. With me. Well. Us. It was—it wasn’t good.”

The rage is expected, sudden adrenaline slamming through him. It fades fast, though, too fast, as his brain starts working, putting clues together until—

He laughs. Not just a chuckle, a bit of amusement shared between friends. No, he _laughs_ , clutching his belly while he straddles a fence that might as well be barbed, the way it cuts into him, throat too tight and head sinking under pressure.

“We’re pathetic,” he gasps out—then falls flat on his back, stunned and aching. The concrete driveway is cracked and broken, edges digging into him.

Connor hops over to crouch beside him. “Do I need to pick you up?” he asks. He means _do I need to be afraid?_ or maybe even _will you hurt me with this?_

Spike's not surprised to realize he could, if he wanted to. It's why he hasn't answered the badly-typed emails, questions and imprecations dancing under cheery gossip and less cheery soul-baring. She's always been good at telling him her darkest, even now when he doesn't want to hear it. When she's got someone else to hide behind the grate.

"Spike?"

There are no clouds that night, but few stars, either. Humanity’s constant growth has bled them from the sky. “Yeah. I’m all right.”

A hand is still thrust into his face, and Spike takes it. Connor’s palms are thick with calluses—not just weapons, though. There’s a bump on the second finger of his right hand that Spike knows better than everything.

“We’re quite a family, aren’t we?”

Connor doesn't grin and chuckle, low and kitten-grey soft, like he's afraid to hear the boom of his own pleasure, the acknowledgment of their own tainted blood. Instead he slows. “Is that a problem?”

Doubt from Connor is unusual. There's little this not-child does that isn't thought out and measured, weighed on scales no other twenty-something boy could match. It's unexpected.

Unexpectedly painful. 

Spike’s got him shoved against a wall in moments, breathing fast and wet into his face while he tries not to let his nails dig in too deep. Bruises they're good at hiding; puncture wounds are harder. “Why the fuck would you think it’s a problem?”

“Him. Her. You. Me. I don’t know what—”

And suddenly, it’s that easy. Spike bruises both their mouths with his kiss, snarling when Connor bites, then bites again, before kissing back just as hard. They’re the only sounds right then, panting and harsh as they grind against each other. Connor’s heart feels heavy against Spike’s chest: too fast, and not fast enough, both.

“I’m not fucking Angel. Verb and curse both. I wouldn’t have him, and I fuck well don’t want to _be_ him, not even if you promised me the damned _world_.”

“And her?”

That’s what it’s really about. Not him, brooding and distant, a specter in both their lives, but a known quantity. Understood. No, it’s _her_ that’s the issue, a woman Connor’s never met and can’t escape the shadow of. Her, that Spike still loves, will always love.

It was Dru who held that position, once upon a time. No longer.

“You remind me of her when you patrol,” he says, as blunt and true as he knows how. His lips taste like Connors when he licks them. “The way you look when you’re out and caught by a classmate, trying to find an excuse. The way you balance betwixt and between like she did, not part of our world and not part of theirs, either. The differences are the same. The problems. You remind me of her when you act like a pathetic, passive aggressive little girl.”

“But?” Connor’s never reacted to Spike’s insults, no matter how keen. He knows that it’s not hurled curses, like thrown chairs and too-wide punches, that matter. He’s always known that. He's learned to listen to the world itself, not the screaming, teaming lies that live there.

Spike closes his eyes. “But I never lived with her.”

He doesn’t explain that it’s only a word from her that prevented him, kept him out in the shadows instead of warm by the fire. He doesn’t need to. It’s choices that make the man, actions that define the path he walks.

Buffy made her choices, good bad and bloody indifferent. She continues to make them, half a world away.

Connor makes his.

“So—”

“So if you actually ask me that question—any of those bloody questions—then yeah, you’re going home alone tonight. And I’m taking the internet with me.”

Smiling slowly, Connor relaxes in Spike’s grip. His hips rise up, a gentle swell that convinces Spike he'll go back to his tiny, box-like home that stinks of old grease, with a bed they've made with two worn smaller ones. “We’re very messed up.”

“Yeah, so's your mum. And?” It’s easy to blame it on Angel: on the games he’s played with both of them, the histories that pattern their skin. The games he’s still playing, whether it’s him that’s moving the pieces or them, doing what they think he would.

It’s still not his fault.

Connor takes him for the first time, that night, hot and thick, with slender, narrow hips working like a stevedore’s. It’s proof and reassurance and everything else; Spike takes each thrust, arms rasped red from cloth, and wants more. Says it, and gets it, until neither of them can speak for panting.

For being.

* * *

“I am awesome.”

Spike flips another page, eyes skimming rapidly. He doesn’t look up; there’s a party going on two floors away and soon as the sun’s down enough, they’ll be off. He wants to finish this beforehand. “Any particular reason?”

“I got into the Shakespeare course.”

For that, Spike will stop. He glances up, timing perfect as he watches Connor skin out of his shirt, lean without the beaten-up t-shirts to make him look skinny. He’s been putting on more muscle, lately, sleek and deceptively compact. “Yeah, and?” The course is booked solid the moment it’s available, leaving hopeful undergrads to scramble around, trading and begging like the codes they need are concert tickets for the hit of the month. Surreal.

“It’s a night course. Starts at seven.” Connor disappears into the closet, a coffin-like thing that routinely swallows them both whenever they try to extract something from its blackened depths. Spike swears it’s demonic, just to hear Connor laugh. “And I talked to the professor.”

The sun is pink and faint through the cracks on the window. Spike watches that, toying with his button-down red shirt—Connor bought it for him—because if he watches Connor change they’ll never leave the apartment. That’s not a bad thought, but Spike’s been cooped up in here all day. He needs fresh air. “About how stupid you are, so he’ll have to give you lots of personal extra tutoring, while you blink your waif-like eyes at him and show off your skinny not-arse?”

A t-shirt smacks into his head. He ignores it. A couple teachers—male and female both—have made eyes at Connor. It's nothing serious but nice fodder for the little-school-boy games Spike likes to play.

“He says it’s okay if I bring a friend. He’ll even grade the papers you write.”

Spike’s face feels numb. This is—the need’s built up in him slowly, partly boredom, partly his damnable need to share things with those he loves best. It’s always been this way, always driven him, so when he starts, when he finds himself hip-deep in something he's not prepared for, it’s not something to question. Just be annoyed with and try to hide, same as always. Unless it's something useful, and will get him laid more often, that is.

But it’s not sharing that makes him want. It’s history, the past wrapped up in what he was, what he is, and what he thinks he might be. What could be.

Mother could never afford the schooling he’d wanted. He’d never even bothered to ask for it.

Connor appears in his field of vision, smiling crookedly as he leans down. He needs a haircut, bangs sliding mouse-brown into his eyes. “If you do okay, he’ll talk to some of the other professors, too.” The kiss is short, almost perfunctory. Casual. Habitual.

It’s sweeter than any Spike’s had.

“Ready to go?” Connor asks.

“Yeah. Lemme just mark my place.”


End file.
